"Nowhere? You are cruel, Mr. Canning. Four miles travelled in the right
direction might bring you to a good deal. Only mountains never really
come to Mahomets, not in life."

"Ah, but I'm no Mahomet in these months, alas! to scale mountains or not
as the whim strikes me. If I were!... But no, no!--my sentence, you see,
is expressly to avoid all mountain-climbing with whatever else is
pleasant--to play the invalid, to rest, breathe deep, sleep and coddle.
And for excitement--it is my revered mother's own suggestion--why, write
a book if I like--my impressions of the New South, or any other reason
why! Write a book! What have I to do with writing, think I, of a long
morning or a longer night! I'm no scrivening professor, but blood and
flesh.... You couldn't imagine the number of times I've been tempted to
chuck all the mild climate tomfoolery, and cut away for lights
and home!"

Carlisle gazed up at him, her chin upon her ungloved hand. Was there
pose in these depictions of Mr. Hugo Canning as a morose recluse? She
thought not: his light bitterness rang true enough, the note of a man
really half-desperate with ennui. And she read his remarks as a subtle
sign of his confidence, an acknowledgment of acquaintance between them,
a bond....

"But you can't do it, I suppose?--if your health demands that you put up
with us a little while longer?"

"I seem rude?--of course. But my meaning is quite the contrary.... May
you, Miss Heth, never know the sorrows of the transplanted and
the idle--"